


Romeo + Juliette (Boy Meets Girl)

by wrr0rzxpurrt



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrr0rzxpurrt/pseuds/wrr0rzxpurrt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Songfic based off a song called "Romeo + Juliette (Boy Meets Girl)" by the Korean boy band SHINee. </p><p>"This painful love story has chilled my heart<br/>I give another short sigh at this love I've come to hate<br/>It leaves only my gasping breath, becoming distant, becoming faint"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Romeo + Juliette (Boy Meets Girl)

Here's the song if you want to listen to it: [ ** _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTFXbAvklu8_**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTFXbAvklu8)  


"I'll see you in a few days, then." Her voice. It's happy, cheery - optimistic. Casual. Those words… they're just that – words. Of no importance. 

"Yeah, sure." They matter to him, though.

Those words mean that he'll have to wait to see her again. Wait for her.

He will.

Days pass; he waits.  _Patience._  


_~This painful love story has chilled my heart_

_~I give another short sigh at this love I've come to hate_

_~It leaves only my gasping breath,_

_~becoming distant,_

_~becoming faint_

*~{}~*

She's pretty,  _he had thought upon first sight. It was a quick revelation that cropped up in the corners of his mind and then dispersed just as suddenly. He explained it through one_ _word – puberty – and that was that. He didn't analyze any further. He couldn't bring himself to care enough._

_~A girl meets a boy and begins a painful love_

_This small detail, this small acknowledgement of another's beauty, human or not, meant nothing. Who cared if this creature was pretty? Who cared about this creature?_

_~Their unspeakable love becomes an echo and love starts again_

_He didn't. It wasn't like he could've acted upon any arising feelings, anyway. She was, after all, merely a creature, he a human. In fact, he almost felt sorry for it._

Sorry that I had to drag you into this,  _he apologized to the creature. In his head, of course; it would be unbecoming if he had said it aloud. This moment of weakness, even though it had been unseen by others, pinched at his heart. He hid it with a sharp command to Butler._

" _Move out."_

*~{}~* _  
_

 

_~I really love her_  
~I really want her  
~I really hate myself  
~Because I can only see her from afar

Artemis runs his fingers, long and slender, over his hair. The action is pointless; detrimental, even. He had already gelled it back this morning. He shouldn't even be nervous. It's just Holly.

_Just Holly, my friend._

_~My heart cries, yearning to say more_  
~and another day passes by in sadness  
~with only the memories of my love,  
~of being unnecessarily selfish for you

He opens the door. "Hi," he says lamely.

"Hi," she says back. Artemis finds himself hoping that his hair hasn't been mussed too much, even though this was just Holly.

"Come in." He shuffles aside awkwardly, feeling out-of-place and too big whilst standing next to her.

Holly hesitates. Artemis tries not to let his panic show. "Sorry, I can't. Not right now."

"Why not?" he blurts out. He wants to slap his hand over his own mouth. He wants to rewind to thirty seconds ago so that he can redo this whole encounter.

_~But now, I feel a little confused_  
~You don't know that you're my only boo  
~I only look at you

"I just came to pick up the… something-inator – whatever contraption Foaly left in your care a couple of days ago. And I can't stay. I'm going out tonight."

"Oh."  _Going out?_

He hurriedly leaves to the confines of his study, retrieving the object. When he returns, he places the thing carefully in Holly's hands and, remembering himself, says, "With Trouble?"

He doesn't sound as nonchalant as he'd like.

"Uh, yeah," Holly says. She shoots him a quick smile. "I'll drop by again soon, mm?"

"Yeah, sure."

_~A love begins again  
~You don't know me or my love for you_

His fingers tremble with the lock when he attempts to latch the door. It takes several unsuccessful tries until Juliet passes by and laughs, shoving him aside playfully as she clicks it shut for him.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

Then he's alone again and he feels worse, ever worse.

_Wait. I'll wait some more._  
 __  
~I hate goodbyes  
~I can't say that I love you  
~Again, like a fool, I can't hold onto you  
~I love you; I want to see you

*~{}~*

_Your friends are left when your lover leaves._

He'd be her friend and nothing more. If he became her lover, they could break up.

_I don't want you to leave me._

So Artemis dials the number and lets the communicator ring, not intent on confessing any of his feelings anytime soon.

_~(I still don't know)_  
~I don't know love; I don't know heartbreak  
~I still don't understand, but I know my heart wants you

"Hello?"

_~Oh, my girl! Oh, my love!_

"Hi, Holly. How was your date?"

"It was fine."

"Oh. Cool," he says. The word feels foreign on his tongue, but the word 'cool' is…  _cool._ Trouble's cool. Artemis isn't. Not really. He doesn't think he ever will be, but he's trying harder.

_~A painful love begins again  
~I can't control these feelings that surge up when I see you_

"What'd you call for?"

"Just to say hi."

"Oh. Okay."

"What are you up to?"

"Nothing really."

"Anything interesting coming up?"

"Hmm… no, I don't think so."

"Huh. Okay."

"Yeah."

"I'll see you later, then?" It's his most animated sentence yet.

"Yeah, of course."

"Alright."

"Bye."

"Bye."

_Click._

He hopes that she'd lied when she said that her date was fine.

_Don't love Trouble. Don't, please._

_~There's a cloud as pure as your eyes_  
~It's beautiful if we see it together  
~The day the cloud turns into rain, we can no longer see it  
~This inevitable consequence hits me at the bottom of my heart as it sinks

*~{}~*

He imagines her on the other end of the line, hanging up and looking right into Trouble's face.

"Who was that?" Trouble would ask.

"Ah, just Artemis."

"Okay."

Maybe they were sitting on a couch together. Maybe they'd cuddle closer. Artemis feels a pang, and it echoes in rings.

_Rings of pain, clouds of pain._

*~{}~*

_~Silently, I think about you  
~I say to myself, "I like you."_

"Oh, hey, I was thinking that we could go to the movies tomorrow. I saw a great trailer the other day."

"Cool," Artemis says, licking his lips at the strange feeling the word leaves behind. He doesn't even ask what movie it is.  _Until I find out, I can pretend._

_I'll pretend it's a romance._

_I'll pretend that Trouble doesn't exist and that it's just me and her and the movie and happiness and maybe even some hand-holding._

Hand-holding used to perplex him. The notion of clasping another's appendage in his just for the purpose of telling the world that they were together seemed… pointless.

He hoped that Holly and Trouble didn't hold hands. Holly was his even if, really, she wasn't. Holly was his because he bloody well said so.

_~The echo responds, "No way."_

*~{}~*

It's a comedy. He doesn't mind. He likes how his awkward laugh sounds when Holly is laughing with him.

The movie is quite silly, quite simple. It's not complicated or clever, but he enjoys himself.

He only wants to reach out and hold her hand, but he doesn't.

"Bye," she tells him when she shields outside the theater.

"Bye," he whispers back.

_I'll see you soon. I'll be waiting for it – for you._

*~{}~*

They marry.

He doesn't go. He says he's sick and, really, he is.

They send him pictures and wish him well.

He doesn't feel well. He doesn't think he'll ever feel well again.

*~{}~*

_~Without you, my feelings are down  
~I still believe that you'll come back_

_What's love, really?_ Artemis asks himself as he sits in his study. To be honest, people only feel love because of the hormones that are procured in their minds. These hormones only exist to ensure that members of the human race would continue to mate with others and therefore continue to live on.

Humans are overpopulated, though.

It would be okay if just one person – for example, him – decided not to love. It would be okay if that one person made do without love.

_~I fall so deep in love with such a girl like you_  
~Don't think of me as just a boy  
~Like a man, I want to be your lover, your love

He didn't want this love.

He didn't choose this.

He had no say in the matter, though. _  
_

 

*~{}~*

"Come in," he says, grinning through his tiredness. She obliges this time.

"How are you?" she asks as she steps through the frame, toeing off her shoes on the Persian rug. He kinda forgets that it's there for the time being, though. There's just her.

_~A love starts again  
~You don't know me or my love for you_

"I'm fine. And you?"

"I'm fine," Holly replies. She doesn't look fine. She looks ecstatic.

"What's got you in a tizzy?"

Holly is going to explode. She is about to combust and her pieces will scatter like confetti in a breeze and sprinkle all over his front hall. He's sure of it.

"I'm pregnant!"  
 __  
~A painful love starts again  
~I can't control these feelings that surge up when I see you

"That's… that's great!" His mind swims as he tries to think of something adequate to say. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

"We don't know yet," Holly says. She looks a bit relieved. Perhaps she expected him to take the news badly.

He had.

She just didn't know.

*~{}~*

They talk. He laughs with her. He loves her laugh. She has to leave soon, though.

Leave to her husband, waiting dutifully for her. Leave him for another.

"I'll see you soon," she tells him.

"Yeah, sure." He seems to say that a lot these days.  
 __  
~I hate goodbyes  
~I can't say that I love you  
~Again, like a fool, I can't hold onto you

*~{}~*

_Happy birthday,_ the card read. Trouble frowned down on it. He'd actually forgotten the event, much to his chagrin, so he simply shrugged it off and resolved to get Holly something nice on his way home from Police Plaza.

Trouble discarded it as he sidled out the door.

_~I love you; I want to see you_

*~{}~*

Some days – his sure, confident, hopeful days – Artemis feels that she's waiting, too. For him.

Not in quite the same way, though. It was almost as if she wanted him to confess something they both knew but wouldn't speak of.

He didn't fully get it, though. If she wanted him to say something, she should tell him that. There was no need to dance around it.

Girls were confusing.

He kept his mouth shut in case he had been mistaken after all.

*~{}~*

"Julius is six months old now," Holly informs him through the communicator. "He's still puny."

"Yeah, I miss the little guy." A white lie. The boy looks more like Trouble than he can handle. His heart gurgles from its position, buried somewhere near his stomach and probably drowning in digestive acids.

*~{}~*

Today, Artemis is feeling confident.

He walks outside and swallows in a big breath of fresh air. He knows why Holly likes it aboveground now.

He wonders if she will give up her position in the fairy community for this or… maybe… for him.

Probably not.

But he's feeling confident today, so he'll try to tell her. He'll try to win her already taken heart.

*~{}~*

"Holly?"

"Yeah?" she asks, chugging down a cup of orange juice.

_~Today, I will say that I love you  
~I will make you love me_

"I… uh… like you."

"What?" She continues to drink, seemingly nonplussed.

"I like you." It sounds surer this time, but her response isn't any more positive.

"Well, yeah, that's kinda why we're friends," Holly says lightheartedly. They both know what he'd meant, though.

"Holly, you're not making this any easier," Artemis said, whining slightly despite himself.

Holly lets her glass clink against the table when she sets it down. "It's kinda too late for this, Artemis."

_~We met through much difficulty  
~Even though you were waiting, I wasn't able to hold onto you_

"Why?"

She gives him a look.

"So…"

"So, because you were too much of a coward, I've been taken by someone else."

_Coward._ That hurt, just a bit.

He hates that the prospect of her love had been snatched under his nose because he had been too cowardly.

_Coward. I will not be one._

_I refuse to._

_~And that old side of me vanishes_

"Okay then." Cool, calm, collected.

Square one.

"Will you—" Artemis stops. She can't go out with him. She's married. She has a child.

It  _was_  a bit too late, wasn't it?

Holly sighs. "Whatever. I gotta get going." She stands, leaving the glass on the table. "Bye."

_~A love starts again  
~You don't know me or my love for you_

Artemis walks her to the door. He probably shouldn't've. Oh well.

He watches as she makes her way down the front walk. He doesn't know what to say, but she's leaving, anyway.

_~A painful love starts again_

"Bye," he says at last. He had responded several minutes too late. He probably shouldn't've. Oh well.

_~I can't control these feelings that surge up when I see you_

She doesn't seem to hear as she shields. He can't see her anymore. His heart pangs.

_~I hate goodbyes_

He had fallen in love with her. He probably shouldn't've.

_~I can't say that I love you_

Oh well.

_~Again, like a fool, I can't hold onto you_

*~{}~*

"Hello?"

"Artemis?"

"Oh, Trouble! Hi. How are you?"

"I'm fine. And you?"

"Fine as well. Is Holly in?"

There's a muffled noise in the background, almost like a shout. The tone is aggressive, but the voice is obviously female.  _That's her._ He knows it.

"No."

"Ah. Okay. Should I call later?"

Another muted yell. "Yeah, just call later. She's… uh… out shopping with some friends."

Artemis knows that Holly never shops with her friends. "Okay," he says.  
 _  
~I love you; I want to see you_

*~{}~*

Artemis lies upon his bed, eyes trained on her picture. A rap sounds at his window. He turns warily and it's her.

He knew it would be.

His fingers work with the latch until the window slides open.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"What are you doing here?"

"What are  _you_ doing here?"

A pause. "This is my house."

"I know."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I came to see Juliet."

"Oh." He steps aside. He should've known.

He keeps watching as she walks down the hall.

_~(Love starts again)  
~(Love starts again)_

*~{}~*

"You're a riot, Juliet. Seriously," Holly gasps, laughing. She pulls herself out from Juliet's room, cheeks red, smile plastered on face. "I gotta go now, though. Show me that one some other time, yeah?"

"Yeah, of course! You'll love it. It's high definition," the blonde adds. She's grinning, too.

Artemis goes over to the window in his room and unlatches it. Holly just walks right past him and slips through. She opens her arms wide and allows her body to just fall forward. Artemis watches as she swoops down and then glides right back up.

_Like a bird._

_Like a kite._

_~This painful love story has chilled my heart_  
~I give another short sigh at this love I've come to hate  
~It leaves only my gasping breath, becoming distant, becoming faint

*~{}~*

"Oh… Artemis. You came."

"You're sick."

"I still didn't expect you to come, really."

"… Well, I did."

"How are you?" A hacking cough.

"I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm… ah… I'm fine."

"Seriously, Holly."

"I'm  _fine._ "

"Is there any way I can be of service to you? Fluff your pillow? Fetch you soup?"

"Nah."

"Are you sure?"

" _Yes,_ Arty, I'm  _sure._ "

"Ah… okay." A pause. "I'll stay here, then."

"Mm?"

"I'll stay here with you."

"Okay."

_~(Love starts again)  
~(Love starts again)_

*~{}~*

" _Holly?"_

_~A girl meets a boy_

" _Yeah?"_

" _I… uh… like you."_

_~And begins a painful love_

_Her heart flutters. She tramples it down._   _"What?"_

" _I like you."_

_~Their unspeakable love becomes an echo and love starts again_

" _Well, yeah, that's kinda why we're friends," she jokes. It doesn't lighten the mood any._

_~(I hate goodbyes)_

" _Holly, you're not making this any easier."_

" _It's kinda too late for this, Artemis."_

_~(I hate goodbyes)_

_His face falls. She knows that he knows that he should've expected this. But he's still heartbroken._

_There's nothing she can do about that._

_What's done is done, after all._

_~(I hate goodbyes)_

_She leaves soon after._

_She can feel his eyes on her retreating back._

_~(I hate goodbyes)_

*~{}~*

"Hey… you know I like you, right?"

"You just had to make this more awkward, didn't you?"

A dry chuckle. "Yeah."

_~Darling, there are more things that I want to say_

Silence.

_~but knowing that they will never reach you hurts my heart_

"I lied."

"What?"

_~Heartache, heartache, heartache_

"I love you."

"You're crazy."

"Yeah."

Artemis fidgets in the chair beside Holly's bed. "What do the doctors say?"

"They don't know what's wrong with me. It's like nothing they've ever seen before."

"Oh."

"You should probably give up on me. I'll end up dying."

_~"Will you come to me? Lean on me?"_

"Oh." He stared at the opposite wall.

She could see his mind churning.  
 _  
_"Can I see your status report?"

"No, only direct family members are allowed to."

"Oh." He sighs.  
 _  
~I lay these worries aside_

A nurse pokes her head in. "Er, Mr. Kelp wishes to see her right now, so could you just –"

"Yeah, okay," Artemis says quickly, interrupting her words. He stands up, mindful of the ceiling, and exits.

_~Get rid of this foolishness, erase it  
~P.S. I want to hear her voice just one more time_

When the invitation to Mrs. Holly Short Kelp's funeral comes some days later, Artemis finds himself wishing that he hadn't left that room.

_~I, I love you_

*~{}~*

"I'll see you in a few days, then," Artemis says, pulling on his coat.

Juliet grins down at him – she's a bit taller than he is. "Yeah, sure."

These words mean that it'll be awhile until she'll see him again. But that's okay. She'll wait for him.

Days pass; she waits.  _Patience._

* * *

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**Author's Note:**

> uh... hi  
> i wrote this a while ago  
> as in, almost a year ago  
> it  
> was like  
> my pride and joy  
> and now i don't like it so much  
> but i wanted to post something in celebration of finally getting an account  
> and this is still probably one of my best works  
> imo.  
> and uh  
> i hope you liked it  
> and uh  
> i really like reviews. or comments or whatever  
> and   
> um.   
> i think i'll just leave now.  
> this is just so awkward and i don't know  
> what i'm doing  
> ok  
> yeah.


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